Where We Stand

The Manhattan Declaration Draws a Line at a Front Already There

On November 20, 2009, Orthodox, Catholic, and Evangelical leaders released
the Manhattan Declaration at a press conference in Washington, D.C. Among the
148 original signatories are fourteen Roman Catholic bishops, two Eastern Orthodox
bishops, and Evangelical leaders from various ministries, churches, seminaries,
and colleges, many quite well known, including J. I. Packer, Charles Colson,
and James Dobson. The coalition of signatories is the strongest expression
yet seen in this country of the new ecumenism of Christians dedicated to the
Great Tradition.

The Declaration (www.manhattandeclaration.org) is a statement of principles
upon which the signatories will not compromise, even if civil disobedience
is required on their part. Signatories pledge that they will not be intimidated
by the state and that they are willing to suffer loss to defend religious liberty
and the sanctity of life and marriage.

Christians have opposed abortion for decades and denied the legitimacy of “gay
marriage” since it became an issue. Why issue a Declaration now?

The State Squeeze

Because, by slow degrees, through legislation, regulatory policies, and court
rulings, the state has been putting the squeeze on the consciences of believers
and infringing on the free exercise of religion. For example, as the Declaration
notes, a court in Massachusetts has mandated that all adoption agencies in
that state—including Catholic Charities—must be willing to place
orphans in the homes of “gay couples.” In New Jersey, a Methodist
institution was stripped of its tax-exempt status when it declined, as a matter
of religious conscience, to permit a facility it owned and operated to be used
for ceremonies blessing homosexual unions. In many places, pharmacists and
health care workers are being pressured to participate in abortions either
directly or indirectly. If abortion is “health care” to which all
women have a right, how dare Christian hospitals deny abortion to any woman?

People and institutions have lost their jobs, licenses, and freedom of conscience
and religion over these matters. The sanctity of life issues of abortion, embryonic
stem-cell research, euthanasia, and assisted suicide, along with “gay
marriage,” are the focus of the Declaration because the state has forced
them upon us.

Throughout history, the state—whether through monarchs, elected bodies,
totalitarian dictators, or collectivizing tyrants—has often looked rapaciously
on three targets in its quest to acquire more power: the individual, the family,
and the local community. The philosophical view of the state seems to be that:

1. A human being is not necessarily created in the image of God. That is
merely a religious opinion.

2. The family, that is, the male-female “one-flesh union” of
marriage with the children born of that union, is not a unique and irreplaceable
unit of society to be protected.

3. Local communities, associations, churches, and businesses no longer have
the right to maintain long-held views about man and marriage, and they may
be coerced to adopt the new views of the secular state.

State-supported education, from the elementary through the college level,
attacks the individual through a denial of man as more than a mere animal.
A new materialism, the bastard child of true science, which was the progeny
of Christian theology, reduces personal and free moral agency to chemical reactions,
neurons, and brainwaves. Evolutionary forces in nature are said to explain
all human behavior, thoughts, and beliefs—including our religious beliefs.

Sex education is being used to subvert sex; the very term is a camouflage
for the sexualization and homosexualization of children. Sex ed is used to
attack not only the individual but also the married couple, the husband and
wife who together form the procreative parents of the family, which is the
irreplaceable foundation of all societies. The very concept of male and female
is being deconstructed into a mere “social construct.” The right
understanding of marital sexual union is being subverted and replaced with
a view of “sex” as any activity between any two (or more) persons
that results in orgasmic sensation. The young are groomed for self-destructive
promiscuity, with only subsidized condoms to defend their bodies against disease
and nothing at all to safeguard their souls.

When the state denies the sanctity of individual human lives and the unique
marital status of a man and woman bound together for the creation of a family,
it undermines society at its roots. But the state also undermines society when
it encroaches upon and subordinates the various institutions that traditionally
have nurtured both the individual and the family unit: extended families, churches,
schools, local communities, and the myriad voluntary associations founded for
cultural, business, philanthropic, and educational purposes.

Necessary Stance

As the state increases its control over more and more aspects of everyday
life, our families and institutions become strained and stressed by the ideological
demands made on them. They are pressured to conform to the views of the state
on matters touching even faith and family. For example, if the state believes “gay
marriage” is in its interest, it requires parents to hand over their
children for “gay-friendly” sex education, thus denying the right
of parents to educate their own children in their most deeply held convictions.
The state will also fine pastors who preach from the Bible’s texts calling
homosexual acts sinful.

We have signed the Manhattan Declaration because we agree that the issues
of the sanctity of life, the sacredness of the marital union of husband and
wife, and the free and full practice of religious faith are fundamental to
human life before God and that we cannot, must not, compromise these core beliefs—we
must defend them. We invite our readers to do the same.

“Where We Stand” first appeared in the January/February 2010 issue of Touchstone. If you enjoyed this article, you'll find more of the same in every issue.

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